Taxing private schools unfair; having task force unnecessary

The motive, we are told, is to establish the impact of ‘too much taxation’ on the institutions.

If the truth be said, singling out these institutions for the crippling levels of taxation they have had to pay for decades is wrong and unfair in the first place.

Taxing the institutions that much in a country where education is still badly needed amounts to punishing those who have invested in projects meant to support the government’s efforts to provide quality but affordable education.

What the government may not be very clear about is that imposing the taxes on private schools means needlessly burdening poor parents and guardians who sweat and toil to fund their children’s education.

There’s a very wrong notion that anybody who takes his or her child to a private school or college is rich or wealthy enough to cough up the millions upon millions of shillings that calls for. That appears to explain the decision by the Higher Education Students Loans Board to deny credit facilities to those educated in private secondary schools and planning to pursue further, chiefly university, studies.

Yet, the fact is that most of those who took their children to private schools did so not necessarily because they boasted “perennial wealth” but just because they had no option but make some sacrifice for the benefit of those young men and women.

Some sold chickens, cows, goats and crops, while others forwent fancy living to ensure that they took their children to what to them were the best schools whose costs they could afford. Of course, there is no denying that there are those who were – or are – indeed rich, but how many are they?

Likewise, if a simple calculation were to be done about the management accounts of private schools, one will wonder how these institutions have been able to survive – let alone thrive. This is because the cost of providing education to a single student is beyond what actually is being levied by the very same schools.

Most private schools survive on the theory of economies of scale as well as stringent budgeting. So it would make much sense discussing how they should be subsidised and have the capacity to ensure that our children are enrolled in much better schools than are now in place.

And why not? In a serious nation dreaming of realising an industrial or economic revolution, it is quality education – not the politics of chest-thumping and the formation of task forces – that should be at the very core of everything.

In the circumstances, the government should see all levels of private education institutions more and more as partners and not just mere investors.

These investors might very easily elected to build guest houses, hotels, nightclubs or beer halls, but they willingly chose to direct their financial and other resources into education for the future of our nation. It is high time the government reciprocated this show of patriotism by abolishing the nuisance taxes imposed on private schools and colleges.Editorial